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Sunday, August 31

Do you have a pile of holiday and birthday cards lying around? Here is a tip that will save you tons. I don't recommend using these to matte photos as you can never be sure if they are acid free. They will however make great embellishments. You can even treat the items if you really would like to make them acid free. Take a look at the front of that card before pitching it. These days the card companies are really making beautiful cards with glitter, 3D embellishments, funny cartoons and cool pattens. Can you use the colorful pattern on the card as a matte on a tag. Can you cut out the funny cartoon and use it as a thick diecut? What about that 3D element...can it be removed? I never throw my cards away without finding at least some part of the pattern that can be reused. My favorite thing to do is to use it on tags. All the small details really do well with being cropped just right.

Friday, August 29

How often do you go on a vacation that you know will inspire an awesome scrapbook one day only to sit down lost in a pile of pictures? Here's hoping these tips help you stay organized and help you create memorable layouts.

Before your trip plan ahead. Buy a spiral journal style notebook and stick a paper clip on the top or side of each page. Paper clip a handful of ziplocs in the back. Then when you get back to the hotel each night you can jot down notes about what you did that day, any ideas you had for a layout, places you visited, what you ate, who you saw, etc. If you are able to pick up brochures from the locations paper clip them to that page when you are done. Do the same with tickets. If you have smaller items that you don't want to lose paper clip one of your ziplocs to that page and that way you can put smaller items in there yet all the items are with your thoughts for that page.

Later, when you are home pull out your journal. You can match up pictures with events and you will be able to remember all the details and you will have all memorabilia right there.

Another tip:The best part about digital photos? You can take as many as you want and worry about only developing the best. I recommend taking photos of signs and location info along your journey. You may not want to scrapbook a photo of the sign in front of the zoo, but when you are sitting scrapping, having that photo on your computer may be just what you need to remember the full name and location. Having a photo of a monument sign may be just what you need to recall interesting information to journal on your page.

Thursday, August 28

One of my favorite things to use in my layouts is vellum. Getting it to work just right can prove to be a bit tricky. How do you get it to stay put and how do you keep ink from smearing all over it?

You can use tape or glue to adhere the vellum, but it will show through. I recommend using brads or eyelets instead. Even better is using a small amount of double sided tape that can be covered by the brad or eyelet. Whenever possible allow the vellum to overlap under another embellishment or even wrap around the back of the paper so that you can tape it down without fear of the tape showing.

Journaling on vellum is one of the best techniques in scrapbooking. You can run it through a printer, or use a pen. It is HIGHLY recommended that you use a special smear proof pen like Vellum writers. They dry quicker and therefore smear less. When running through a printer it is recommended you set it to 'draft mode' so that less ink is transferred.

Other cool uses for vellum:

Print black and white photos right on heavyweight vellum.

Print quotes on vellum then layer over patterned paper.

Create water elements such as bubbles, ice or even shower curtains in your layouts.

Make keepsake envelopes for things you want to see in your layout, but tuck safely away. Here is a link to a great template.

Cover a blurry photo with vellum for an artsy look that makes the blur look intentional.

Wednesday, August 20

I finished this last Thursday, but wasn't sure I was going to share at all. It took me 2 hours to make 3 shaker boxes for a contest being hosted on my scrapbooking group, Scrapbook Swap n Crop. I don't know why I struggled so much. Leaving out the rant as to why I need a Cricut or a Cuttlebug, I will point out how much easier it would be if I could make a diecut with a punch out of the middle when making these kinds of things. Everytime I mention this, I do indeed direct my hubby to this blog and hope at some point the hint sticks. LOL.

Anyway, here is my favorite of the shaker boxes I made for this contest. If you are from my group....don't read until after Sunday, it's supposed to be anonymous. LOL I used a 3D diecut from a set I purchased at the dollar store for the candle. The cupcake paper (bottom part) is cut from a pink striped piece of cardstock. The cupcake itself, I freehand cut from a piece of white diamond dust cardstock. I punched out the center in the size of the square birthday sticker I was going to display underneath. Pink glitter and beads complete the 'shaker' part of the box.

Another group I belong to, Scrapbook Bingo is hosting an A-Z title swap. Everyone got a letter and has to create 26 titles starting with that letter to swap with everyone else. End result is you get one title for every letter of the alphabet after trading. I picked "M" and settled on "Make a Wish". I have never made anything quite like this so I hope it's up to par with the awesome work I've seen made in that group.
The title is printed on a blue piece of cardstock. It is matted in green and then again in purple. It is attatched at the right side with 2 purple brads. On the left, I have embellished it with a simple shaker box. The paper inside the box has "Happy Birthday" written all over it in purple, green and blue. It is framed in purple and filled with itty bitty beads. I finished it off with green chalking around all of the edges and a birthday sticker in coordinating colors on the corner of the shaker box. If you are in the swap and don't want the surprise ruined....don't scroll down. LOL.

Tuesday, August 19

I am working backwards through my digital photos, so if you notice my children are getting younger with each post, you are not losing your mind. Well, all other points of reference aside. LOL. This is a very simple layout. I wanted to stick with the colors of the cake which were yellow and blue. When I made the torn paper scrap across the middle yellow, it was simply too much yellow with all the overwhelming yellow in all the photos. I kept it simple on purpose because I am showcasing so many photos.

Monday, August 18

Being a Florida girl, I have done the Disney thing more than my fair share and I have the layouts to prove it. I've done Mickey themed layouts to death so I wanted to try something different with this set. I didn't do anything Disney themed, just picked a color combo and went with it. All 3 were based on page maps.

It was hard finding a color combo that complimented the photos because there are so many photos and so many people wearing so many different tones. So I just said forget it and picked a random combo I'd been wanting to try. Creme, brown and maroon. I like how they ended up and I'm glad I was able to do three distint layouts using all the same colors.

Sunday, August 17

For those of you who aren't members, I am co-owner (with my awesome co-leader Sandy!!) of a great little scrapbooking group. Click here to check it out. We host a monthly sketch challenge and this is the sketch that was chosen by last months winner. I struggled with this sketch. Man did I struggle. My yearly albums are 8 1/2 x 11 and there was no way I was fitting that many pictures on a page that size. So I decided that I would try it in the original 12x12 that the sketch calls for.

After I finished it occurred to me that the only 12x12 albums I'm working on are the kids albums and this was about my birthday. So I redid it in 11 x 8 1/2 landscape for the digital album I'm working on. It wasn't hard at all altering the sketch to a different size. I had to resize the pictures a tiny bit and change the shape of the journaling box. The circle had to go more at an angle to the focal picture than directly at the side, but the results were pretty similar I think. I do a lot of changing sketches up a bit, because most sketches are 12x12 and most of my layouts are 8 1/2 x 11. The final product below shows you how simple it is to make any sketch work for almost any size layout. Plus the longer layout gave me an opportunity to use the adorable little flip flops embellishment.

Friday, August 15

When we were in Orlando last year we took the kids to Universal and I of course had to buy them the Thing 1 and Thing 2 tee shirts. If you've met my kids, you'd know how perfect it is. LOL. I stuck with a red, black and white to match the shirts. This is a digital layout for our 11 x 8 1/2 landscape album. Below is the sketch I attempted to follow but ran out of room for journaling. I didn't really have anything to say about it anyway. LOL. The picture speaks for itself.

Thursday, August 14

My father in law took my son fishing. He's the only person in the family that enjoys it as much as Nick does. I promise he does inspite of that look on his face. LOL. This is a digital layout for our landscape 11 x 8 1/2 book. I used a blue back ground then used a wire/mesh panel to add contrast. I thought it looked like a fishing net, so it fit. I did follow a sketch, but I changed some things up a bit. I didn't journal and I moved the title to the left. I also put the focal photo on the bottom rather than in the middle. I still thought it was a great sketch so I thought I'd share it.

As usual my sketches are found on PageMaps. They have the very best collection in my opinion. Go visit them. I save sketches I find all over the web to my hard drive for later use. I have a folder labeled sketches, then inside there are folders labeled "1", "2", "3", "4", "5+". Each numbered folder corresponds with the amount of photos each sketch is for. For example the #4 folder has all sketches for layouts with 4 photos. That way when I have a handful of photos to scrap I can go directly to the folder that shows layouts for that amount of photos and find a sketch. I am up to over a hundred per folder. It has completely changed my scrapping for the better.

Wednesday, August 13

I just recreated one of my favorite layouts. I used the sketch above I made based on a layout I'd seen in a friend's layouts. She used it to display funny sayings her child had said as a little kid. I took a picture of my kids and used the title word 'SIBLINGS'. I then used each journal strip to show a quote about siblings. They alternate beween brother and sister quotes. Some of my favorites are: "When parents don't understand, a brother always will." "Being a brother is even better than being a superhero." and "Your sister knows when you've been bad or good."

I bought a HUGE pastel page kit at Walmart. They had it for $19.99 and it was said to be valued at $120. I kept passing on it because I like pastels, but there was enough to make an entire album worth of layouts and I didn't know if I liked pastels THAT much. Well, when they clearanced it out to $4, of course I snapped it up. I've used quite a bit of it for spring swaps I worked on the past few months, but there is still more to go around. I don't know if I have many more pastel layouts in me. LOL. It seriously came with 50+ pages, 100s of stickers, chipboard pieces, titles, diecuts, 3D embellishments, etc. Despite the fact that I'm not terribly impressed by pastels in my layouts, this is one of my very favorites because I've never done anything quite like it. I loved it so much I had to make this duplicate layout twice. One for each kid's album.

Sunday, August 10

We took the kids to a local farmstead park and got some really cute pictures. I wanted an outdoorsy, animal feel without being too zoo-ish. This is from the landscape album, I'm working on. This is a digital layout, but I've already scraplifted it for a paper and scissors 8 1/2 x 11 layout for our family album.

Friday, August 8

My son's field day was a nice cool day and my daughter was being especially cooperative, so I was lucky enough to go and get some great photos. I'd never scrapbooked this type of thing so I wasn't sure how to include so many action shots. I think it turned out okay. The most photos I've stuck on a single page layout before.

Thursday, August 7

I am just finishing up this layout, which is just terrible because the photos were taken last year. We went to visit one of my best friends and her son and my daughter are partners in crime to put it mildly. As we were packing up the car to start the long drive home, we hear giggling from the laundry room. We go in to see them eating peanut butter from the jar, NO SPOON. Oh and did I mention they were sharing with the DOG!!!!! We never did get the story straight, just that one was hungry and the other thought peanut butter would be delicious. We never could find out which person played which roll. I loved the bright colors of the toddler embellishments.

Tuesday, August 5

Very late posting these layouts from nearly a year ago, especially since she's the same best friend below in the baby shower shots and the same best friend from our August vacation with the newborn. LOL. I did love them and wanted to share. They are so simple. Her colors were red and black so I picked that as the color theme for the layouts. I was going to go with simple silver accents, but when I saw the BLING letter stickers, they were just too perfect. So very HER!! =) The red matting on the middle layout is handmade paper so it has a 3D feel and reminds me a lot of rose petals.

I thought I'd throw in the bridal shower layout as well. I'm not IN the photos, but it went with this wedding and I loved it. I did pink and grey/silver for the pre-wedding celebration layouts. I loved the heart shaped jewels.

Saturday, August 2

I tried my hand and handwritten journaling here. I know they say you should do it on layouts because those that get your scrapbooks down the road will appreciate it, but I just hate the look of my handwriting. I tried writing it 4 times on paper first to get it right and I still am unhappy with it. I love the teal/lime color combo though. I followed the same sketch here as I did for the layout a few posts back of my step-mom and my son. Funny how different embellisments make the difference. Of course, I opted to not include the contrasting patterned paper because the above layout was plenty busy with the colors. I also left the set up the same even though one is 8 1/2 x 11 and the other is 11 x 8 1/2.

Friday, August 1

The kids had a blast washing my car so I pulled Daddy's car up and let them go to town on that too. I sat back and worked the camera. I didn't follow a sketch, but I did scraplift the layout from a friend's page that I absolutely loved. It amazes me how the layout is identical in set up, but are completely different looking. This was my first time just putting random flowers all over the layout as filler.

The Fine Print

All work is my own unless otherwise stated. I make every effort to link to the original inspiration whenever possible. All work is Copyright 2008-2014 by Christina Willman-Skinner. Feel free to use any of my sketches or ideas for personal use. I would so very appreciate a link to my work if you use it as inspiration...especially for a contest, challenge or publication. Thank you so much for visiting and I hope you have a fabulous day!!